1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic part control system and a method for operating the same, and more particularly, to a system for controlling remote integrated circuit and method for operating the same in on-line.
2. Background of the Related Art
Generally, IC (Integrated Circuit) is a basic element of a semiconductor and mainly controls operation of every component therein.
FIG. 1 illustrates a general construction of a television (TV) among other electronic appliances and a connection state of network of a manager for managing the TV manufacture.
As shown, the typical construction of a TV is comprised of sound part, display part and micom part.
Here, the sound part comprises various kinds of parts that are associated with sound, e.g., tuner part 11, multichannel sound control part 12, and sound control part 13. The display part comprises different kinds of parts that are associated with display, e.g., image control part 14, CPT (Color Picture Tube) control part 15, and CPT part 16. Each part illustrated here has its own IC for controlling. The IC comprises a small range of register in order to facilitate operation of each part, and communicates with other IC registers through a bus line 17 to control the corresponding operation.
Moreover, the micom part 18 controls IC of each part so that an entire product can be operated in a harmony.
In the actual manufacturing process for a TV with the construction described above, the ICs for controlling operation among every part aforementioned require setup beforehand. The setup process is now detailed below.
To begin with, after putting the corresponding parts together for a product, setting is performed to connect the parts to one another. Simultaneously, to set up each part, separate controlling computer 20 for a setup manager is connected to system 10 of each product.
Afterwards, the setup manager uses the controlling computer 20 and carries out register setup of the IC by inputting data to a relevant IC through the bus line 17 of a corresponding product.
For example, if a setup manager wishes to change an IC register for the tuner part 11, he or she first sets up the micom part 18 of a corresponding product into an operator controlling system. At this state, the setup manager operates the controlling computer 20 and connects to IC of a relevant tuner part 11 through the micom part 18, and at the same time, changes register value of the corresponding IC within a range the manager intended.
At this time, each IC register value is either one that a setup manager has already informed of or one that is provided on a manual by the IC manufacturer based on each IC setup data. In addition, the range of the corresponding IC register value is determined on basis of the setup range for register value in a harmony with the above IC and IC of other associated parts.
However, considering that each IC is usually designed or manufactured by a different designer or manufacturer, it becomes easy to understand why a setup manager often has difficult time to set a precise register range of each IC. In other words, no matter how precisely does the setup manager operate IC setup based on a corresponding manual, each IC does not readily adapt to other ICs, therefore, it is practically required to obtain an appropriate setup value.
Especially, if there is an error in setup of the corresponding IC, a setup manager has to find out what exactly went wrong and correct the problem accurately, which are considered to be very difficult to do and require a great deal of skills from the setup manager in each different case.
Previously, if the same problem as above happened, an IC setup manager used to call the corresponding IC designer to change the relevant IC setup or personally visit the IC designer and ask to correct the setting error.
Unfortunately, the ICs are generally imported from foreign countries and the designers of the same live abroad also. Accordingly, visiting an IC designer for correcting an error occurred during a corresponding IC setup not only wasted too much time of the IC designer but also increased a lot of costs in doing so.
Moreover, the above-described IC error is not limited to a certain industry. Rather, any manufacturer who makes a similar or identical product using the above IC experiences the same problem at least once.
Since the lack of information share concerning how to deal with the problem, many attempts to solve the problem only caused a lot of loss in time and cost. That is, even though many agree that these problems do not occur among TV manufacturers only, but every manufacturer who uses IC, it has been unsuccessful to effectively resolve this concern and any particular solution has not been discovered so far.